Four Oxfordshire schools are in danger of seeing £62m disappear in the first volley of cuts from the new Government. At the same time, groups of parents and teachers are mobilising to avail themselves of public money to start up their own independent schools — free of the county council.

Back in March the four schools — Banbury School, Cheney School, in Headington, Larkmead School in Abingdon, and Iffley Mead Special School in Oxford — learned they had won £62m for major rebuilding under the Labour Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme. Now it is not clear whether the new coalition Government will continue with the programme.

Meanwhile, Oxfordshire groups are waiting in the wings to take advantage of the new Government’s flagship policy of funding independent schools, both primary and secondary. Such is the extent of grassroots enthusiasm nationwide that some might ask whether the school system may not be about to change forever.

Spearheading the movement towards independence are charities such as New Schools Network.

Its spokesman Roland Stewart said: “We know the new independent state schools will receive the same per-pupil funding as the other maintained schools in the local authority.

“However, there is still uncertainty around the issue of capital and start-up funding. We assume that a part of the Building Schools for the Future fund will be diverted towards the new schools, but until Michael Gove (Education Secretary) makes any further announcement we won't be entirely certain where this funding will come from, or how much it will be.”

He added that independent schools, such as Steiner Schools or Muslim schools, are expected to be allowed to convert into independent state schools.

This last point could prove of vital importance to the Iqra School in Littlemore, a Muslim secondary school teaching children from 11-18, now in danger of closure or moving to a smaller site after running up more than £2m debts to the Oxford diocese of the Church of England, from which it leased the school in 2006.

Dr Hojjat Ramzy, principal of the school, which has about 100 pupils and 14 staff, said: “Of course we are looking at the Government’s plans with great interest and hope. We shall take action in the very near future. The problem for us is that the recession has meant many parents could not pay the fees and we have run up debts on the capital.”

Sarah Meyrick, spokesman for the diocese, said: “ I can confirm that the Iqra Schools owes in the region of £2.2m in unpaid rent and interest to the Trustees of the Lawn Upton Church of England Middle School Charity. The Iqra School is currently occupying the site under a lease until July 15, after which we expect them to vacate the premises.”

Unfortunately for Dr Ramzy, it seems that in these straightened economic times, Mr Gove’s ambition of setting up hundreds of independent state schools may only be financed by paying running costs — not capital ones.

The new education policy now emanating from the UK coalition Government has grown out of the previous Labour Government’s policy of establishing so-called academies, such as the Oxford Academy in Littlemore — which is semi-independent and draws its funding directly from central government instead of from the local authority, in its case Oxfordshire County Council.

A spokesman for the Department of Education explained that the Government will promote the idea of academies, and that free schools are expected to grow through them.

Mr Gove said: “Teachers know how to run schools, not bureaucrats or politicians. That’s why this Government is committed to giving all schools greater freedom. Many schools have already shown a keen interest in gaining academy freedoms. They want to use those powers to increase standards for all children and close the gap between the richest and the poorest.”

The model for the overhaul of the English education system, outlined in the Queen’s Speech this week, is to be found across the North Sea in Sweden where, since 1995, privately run but state-funded schools now account for 40 per cent of the 945 upper secondary schools teaching 16-19-year-olds, and about 15 per cent of schools for younger children.

In Sweden, schools do not receive capital funding — only the per capita funding that the state would have to fork out in any case.

Sylvie Sklan, of Steiner Schools, said that she was watching the situation carefully.

She said: “We understand there will be provision to convert schools from private to state-funded status. But of course the Government will only pay the per capita cost of the local authority — which certainly would not be enough to fund pupils at, say, top public schools.”

She added: “The major expense in setting up an independent school has always been the capital costs involved in acquiring premises but we shall have to wait until after the Budget on June 22 to find out whether the Government is offering any help.”

The basis for the idea in Sweden, as here, was to raise standards across the entire system by introducing competition which, it was hoped, would force state schools to raise standards if they were to match those attained by the free schools.

But statistics from Sweden suggest that, in fact, overall education standards have not risen with the introduction of free schools — even though pupils at free schools, in general, do better than those in state schools.

Here in England the priority seems to be to cut the number of Neets — young people leaving school with few qualifications and Not in Education, Employment or Training.

A lot of waiting is needed before all becomes clear: exactly what is the new government offering parents or others wanting to set up their own schools — and will those four Oxfordshire state schools who thought they were in line to get that £62m ever get it?